Frank’s Diner

Frank's Diner: Slot Overview

Diners are a type of restaurant that originated in the United States and are often characterised by their vintage or retro look, neon signs, stainless steel exteriors, while selling classic American comfort food like burgers, fries, and pancakes. Generally speaking, they look like inviting places to dine. Maybe not so much the eating establishment found in Relax Gaming's online slot Frank's Diner, though. This one looks grimier, run-down, and not hugely hygienic. It also attracts an unusual clientele. The food it serves doesn't look bad, and neither do its features, so if you're gastronomically inquisitive, let's have a look-see.

Not a lot of info accompanied the review of Frank's Diner, making it difficult to deduce what exactly is going on in this apocalyptic joint. A chap in a hot rod chair, with a giant slab of muscle wearing a gas mask, standing behind him, sits on one side of the gaming area, while the other side of the screen displays a weapon-wielding mohawked character and a guy in an apron on the roof, presumably Frank of the title. At a guess, it seems as though society has broken down somehow, or this diner has been set up in a derelict part of the country, or something else peculiar is going on. Certainly not bad, peculiar though, as Frank's Diner has been made in a fun old school video game spirit, in the manner of say, Banana Town, to give it a joyous, pixelated, 8-bit aura.

The big grey contraption in the middle of the screen is Frank's Diner's 6x4, 4,096 ways to win gaming area. It's powered by a medium volatile math model, and when betting $/€0.10 to $/€100 per spin, the default RTP is 96.1%.

Sliding along Frank's countertop are five low-pay food items - eggs, sausages, steaks, patties, and hunks of meat, worth 0.5x to 1x the bet for 5 OAK, while 4 character symbols are the high pays, awarding 1.5x to 3x the stake for a 5 OAK winning combination. Frank's Diner's cascade mechanic removes winning symbols from the reels and drops others down to fill the gaps, repeating if a new win appears.

Frank's Diner: Slot Features

On the menu today, we've got split symbols, two types of wilds, respins, reel multipliers, win boosts, free spins, a bonus buy, and bonus reels.

Split Symbols

When 2 to 3 matching single symbols are on the same reel, they consolidate into a double or triple stacked symbol. This doubles or triples the number of ways to win. A random event may occur where all consolidated symbol positions are replaced with the highest symbol from the consolidated set.

Wilds

There are two types of wilds that may land on reels 2 to 5 - regular and golden. If a gold wild is part of a win, a respin is triggered, and all symbols part of the win are held in place. Non-winning symbols are removed, allowing new symbols to drop in. Respins continue as long as a new symbol lands and contributes to the win, or until the grid is filled with winning symbols.

Both standard wilds and gold wilds can act as win multipliers. The multiplier depends on the reel where the wild landed. Reel 2, 3, 4, or 5 has a multiplier of x2, x3, x4, and x5, respectively. If wilds appear on multiple reels, their multipliers are added together, and the total multiplier is applied to the win.

Win Boost

During an avalanche, there is a chance a Win Boost triggers, one per spin. The Symbol Boost places the same symbol in set positions on the grid for the next symbol generation to guarantee a win, whereas the Wild Boost places wilds in all free spaces on reels 2 to 5 to guarantee a win, and free positions on the leftmost and rightmost reels are filled with the matching symbols. The Gold Wild Boost triggers a respin, and all free positions from the second to fifth reel are filled with wilds, while empty positions on the leftmost and rightmost reels are filled with matching symbols.

Last Stand Free Spins

Landing 3 scatters triggered 10 free spins, with starting multipliers of x2, x3, x4, and x5. Each wild respin that occurs during the feature increases all reel multipliers by +1 on their respective reels. Upgraded multipliers persist throughout the round. Hitting 3 scatters awards a further +10 free spins.

Feature Buy and Bonus Reels

For 60x the bet, players can start a game round that is guaranteed to trigger free spins. The Bonus Reels mode is played at 10x the bet, and it removes all pay symbols so only scatters land, with an increased bonus round entry chance.

Frank's Diner: Slot Verdict

Frank's Diner serves up a slot that's more palatable than the dive of a restaurant it's set in suggests it might produce. Relax Gaming has dropped some excellent 8-bit action in the past, including the aforementioned Banana Town, as well as Hellcatraz and Hellcatraz 2, as well as Santa's Stack. So, when it comes to conjoining big chunky pixels together, Relax Gaming's art squad is able to do so with the best of them. Frank's Diner yields a neat wee nostalgia kick, as others have done, as it lays on a post-apocalyptic hellscape, with some sweet bleepy sounds on the side.

However, some of the features aren't as original as Frank and his pals. There are elements of ELK's nitro reels mechanics here, and the split symbols mechanic, for instance, is right out of the Lucksome playbook, where they're known as FatStacks and have shown up in FatStacks Miami Cash and Napoleon 2. Adding to this, Frank's Diner, like Napoleon 2, has two wild symbols, linked to both multipliers and a respin feature. Aside from the split symbols, the other features weren't exactly carbon copies of each other, but halfway through the review, it was beginning to feel like Frank had copied much of the menu rather than create signature dishes. Frank's Diner's overall flow is quite different to the Lucksome slots, though. The atmosphere is certainly different, and Last Stand Free Spins have the potential to do a solid job combining progressive reel multiplier values with wilds and respins.

Speaking of potential, Frank's Diner taps out when it hits a cap of 10,000x the bet. Despite some recycled/cloned features, Frank's Diner manages to create a fairly distinctive flavour, turning new and familiar mechanics into a fresher variation that keeps the game and the nostalgia chugging along.